CJN Dakota County RMS
Building an RMS for the Criminal Justice Network.
TL;DR: A Breif Project Overview
The Criminal Justice Network (CJN) Records Management System (RMS) supports law enforcement professionals across multiple agencies and roles — from patrol officers to records clerks, investigators, evidence technicians, and supervisors. These users rely on this system in high-stakes environments where speed, accuracy, and trust in data can directly impact operations and public safety.
The existing RMS landscape was fraught with inefficiencies: redundant data entry, disjointed screens, confusing navigation, and frequent loss of work. These issues led to frustration, workarounds, and diminished confidence in the system itself.
My role was to lead UX research and design collaboration for the RMS redesign — synthesizing complex workflows, uncovering real-world pain points, and guiding concept development toward a more intuitive, efficient, and trustworthy system.
Methodologies: Contextual Inqiry, Ride-alongs with patrol officers, Workflow walkthroughs with end users, Comparative system analysis, Surveys, Wireframing, Interactive Prototyping, Usability Testing
The Problem
RMS workflows are inherently complex. A single case might involve:
Multiple entities (people, incidents, vehicles, evidence)
Interactions across modules
Work conducted both in the field and in office environments
Integrations with disparate systems and data sources
Users reported:
Re-entering data repeatedly
Opening many browser tabs just to view or update related information
Poor mobile/vehicle usability (e.g., patrol contexts)
Lack of confidence that entered work would save and persist
We needed to understand not just what users were doing, but how and why they were doing it — and where the system itself actively undermined their workflow.
The Solution
One streamlined RMS that would meet the needs of a diverse group of users needs, as well as satisfy the stakeholder. We were likely to face many factors including, resistance to change, powerful silos, competing priorities and different cultures surrounding each agency. We decided to do it anyway.
Primary Research
Goals:
Understand real-world workflows across diverse roles in context
Identify the core user types and role specific user needs
Uncover unmet needs, workarounds, and trust issues with current systems
Translate research insights into concept directions
Validate design decisions with users through iterative testing
Contextual Inquiry & Ride-Alongs
I conducted ride-alongs with patrol officers to observe workflows in the environments where they actually happen — in patrol cars, under time pressure, with mobile constraints. We also conducted in-context walkthroughs with records staff, investigators, and evidence technicians.
This grounded approach uncovered what users struggle with in their environment, not just in theory.
Generative Conversations & Workflow Mapping
Across agencies, we held structured walkthroughs where users demonstrated their current RMS systems and explained:
What they liked
What they disliked
Workarounds they used to mitigate system shortcomings
Role specific user needs
These sessions allowed us to create detailed workflow maps, capturing:
Hand-offs between roles
Points of friction
Critical decision path
Synthesis & Thematic Analysis
From dozens of hours of observations and interviews, we synthesized key themes:
Pain due to redundant data entry
Cognitive burden from too many open tabs and context switches
Frustration from poor downstream integration
Low trust in data reliability and persistence
Need for high-level snapshot of case status that can be understood at a glance.
We translated these themes into design principles that guided concept development.
Design Concepts
Building on the core themes identified through research, we established a design framework and evaluated two design directions, each aligned to the following objectives:
Enable data reuse across workflow. ➡️ Auto-population whenever possible
Reduce cognitive load and unnecessary navigation ➡️ Individual panes on a single screen
Make status, key info and actions clear at a glance. ➡️ Overview card, status, alerts
Design for trust and reliability in mission-critical tasks ➡️ System feedback notifications
Concept 1 — Tabbed Interface
A traditional multi-tab layout designed to segment information by module (evidence, people, case notes). This mirrored familiar enterprise patterns and aimed to reduce visible page clutter.
Concept 2 — Single-Scroll Page
This concept consolidated all relevant case information on a single, vertical flow — reducing context switching and enabling users to see relationships between people, incidents, and evidence without opening multiple windows or tabs.
User Choice:
After internal reviews and stakeholder discussions, users consistently preferred the single-scroll approach. It aligned with their needs for continuity, fewer clicks, and less mental overhead.
Iterative Validation
Co-Design Workshops
We engaged cross-agency representatives in workshops to:
Refine feature sets (evidence handling, unknown suspect management)
Validate workflow logic
Clarify domain terminology
Workshops ensured the design accounted for:
Role differences (patrol vs evidence vs records)
Edge cases (e.g., multi-jurisdiction incidents)
Legal and compliance constraints
Usability Testing (Two Rounds)
We ran two rounds of moderated usability testing with approximately 5 representative users per role type.
Session 1 validated:
Navigation logic
Content hierarchy
Task success rates (e.g., create/edit evidence, link people to cases)
Reduced friction across workflows
Session 2 validated:
Significant reduction in redundant clicks
Clearer feedback that data is captured and retained
Improved task completion and reduced need for workarounds
Taxonomy & Content Layout
To support clear labeling and reduce confusion, we conducted surveys focused on taxonomy and naming conventions, along with card sorting exercises to understand how users naturally group information and where they expect it to live. This work helped streamline terminology across modules (e.g., “Subject,” “Reported By,” “Involved Parties”) and ensured labels aligned with the language users actually use.
Impact & Next Steps
This research laid the foundation for a cohesive RMS redesign that:
Reduces cognitive load
Eliminates unnecessary navigation complexity
Increases trust and perceived reliability
Supports real-world use contexts, including in-vehicle patrol work
Next phases include:
Detailed interaction design for high-priority modules
Deeper prototyping with live data scenarios
Continued usability validation across more agencies
Close collaboration with engineering for feasibility and integration planning
Reflection
This project reinforced for me the importance of staying grounded in real context, especially when working within highly complex systems and high-pressure environments. By meeting users where they actually work—often in situations where time, accuracy, and trust truly matter—I learned how powerful it is to listen carefully to how people describe their challenges in their own words.
Working through ambiguity, competing needs, and evolving requirements required patience, adaptability, and grace under pressure. Validating decisions through real tasks and workflows helped keep the work focused and defensible, even when constraints were tight or opinions differed. In the end, this approach allowed us to move beyond simply identifying pain points and instead build a shared design vision—one that users not only understood, but felt confident supporting and adopting.
